A Good Word Wednesday #82 Balance

Good Words of hope and help for you each Wednesday

Feb 14, 2024

I am not a graceful, coordinated person. That is no news flash. I wasn’t blessed with any athletic ability and I don’t have much innate capacity to be posed and maintain balance. (As we age, we tend to lose ability to stay balanced. If that’s the case, given my current state of imbalance, in a few years I may not be able to sit upright!)

I’m always amazed at gymnasts competing on the balance beam. How in the world does she not fall off this four-inch-wide contraption?

a woman in a red leotard balances on a beam

How does this apply to life? I know I tend to be a people-pleaser. Are you? When someone asks me to volunteer for a church committee or a community event planning group, my natural go-to response is, “Sure. I can do that for you.” Without even praying about it and considering the consequences, I add another activity to an already full calendar. You know what happens. Life quickly gets out of balance and can come crashing down. Not a pretty picture.

I love to read books and could literally do that all day long. While that checks the box for daily mental activity, it would force other aspects of my life to be out of whack. I also need physical exercise and to eat healthfully. I need quality time with my husband and family to keep my emotional life balanced.

What does this mean in the Christian walk? Are you balanced in every area of your life? Here are a few questions to ask yourself:

__ 1. Does my life prioritize seeking God? Do I include the basics of daily Bible study, prayer and worship in my life?

__ 2. Do I have regular quality time with my family and close friends?

__ 3. Does my daily work serve God and my community well?

__ 4. Am I actively serving in my local church? Am I serving others in my neighborhood and the nations?

__ 5. Am I caring for my own health?

__ 6. Do I engage and challenge my mind and imagination often?

God knows our limits; He gave them to us on purpose. One of His clearest directives is to practice a sabbath (Ex. 20:9–11), a weekly, intentional pausing in our work—leaving some undone—to remind us that we aren’t able to do it all. And to remind us, over and over again, to worship the One who can. 6 Marks of a Healthy, Well-Balanced Christian Life

Wednesday in the Word

“Be well-balanced (temperate, sober of mind), be vigilant and cautious at all times; for that enemy of yours, the devil, roams around like a lion roaring (in fierce hunger), seeking someone to seize upon and devour.” 1 Peter 5:8 – Amplified Bible

The perfect example of balance: “And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.” Luke 2:52
The perfect example of life balance: ^“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’There is no commandment greater than these.” Mark 12:30-31

Share Your Good Words

Good Questions of the Week: How do you find balance in your life? How do you know when your life is out of balance? What do you do to correct your imbalance?

Photo: She Is Safe

Good Unseen People

I invite you to read more about Unseen People: Sharing Light and Life With Your Neighbors and the Nations. Click the link to read more on my website.

Unseen People book

To mark the progress of the book and to give you weekly insights into my writing life, please follow along and watch the videos on This Week in Unseen People.

Unseen People Video 1 Welcome!

Episode 2: This week in Unseen People — Welcome to my writing sanctuary

A few years ago I wrote in my first blog these words:

… all of it together is a huge balancing act…
But then, so is life… Knowing when to listen and when to be quiet… When to work and when to rest… When to help and when to walk away… When to give to your child and when to let them do for themselves. We all live in a world that requires a great deal of balancing and the challenge is knowing how to get back on track when you fall and taking the next step toward stability. It’s a lifelong challenge. I’m glad we are all in this together.

Read the story about a health diagnosis that changed my life. Balancing Act